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Researchers Find Gene for Baldness
By Reuters
Contributed by Jodie Miller
Washington, DC
January 27, 1998
Researchers said on Thursday they had found a gene
that might govern baldness and said their finding could lead to a gene
therapy treatment for people who want more hair.
The new gene, appropriately called hairless, could regulate the human hair
cycle, they reported in the journal Science.
"The discovery of this new gene gives us endless possibilities that may allow
us to effectively treat hair loss and possibly baldness within the next five
years," dermatology professor Angela Christiano of New York's Columbia-
Presbyterian Medical Center, who led the study, said.
"It is now within our reach to design ways to grow hair, remove hair, even
dye hair genetically and, best yet, this can all be accomplished topically,
reducing possible side-effects."
Christiano's team started with a family in Pakistan whose members all suffer
from a rare genetic disease called alopecia universalia. Victims have no hair
anywhere on their bodies.
"They have no hair on their lashes, no eyebrows, no hair inside their nose,
nothing," Christiano said in a telephone interview. "It doesn't make you sick
and kill you (but) it's devastating."
The condition was clearly genetic. "We got the linkage to chromosome 8,"
Christiano said, but then hit a roadblock because there was "a lot of junk"
on the chromosome the researchers could not identify.
"We started looking around for some mouse models that might give us a clue."
The obvious candidates were "hairless" mice bred for dermatological testing.
"These hairless mice have been used a long time in dermatology for testing
sunscreen and moisturizers but they never been used as primary models for
baldness."
But Christiano's team found the gene responsible for the mice's hair-free
condition and found a gene sequence that was about 80 percent similar in the
Pakistani family, right on chromosome 8 where they hoped it would be.
It also does what they hoped it would do. "'Hairless' is a transcription
factor, meaning that its job is to turn on other genes," she said. "We hope
it will give us a better handle on male pattern baldness."
The most common type of hair loss, known as male pattern baldness, can affect
up to 80 percent of all people eventually and is hormone-related. Another
type is caused by stress,
"With the hairless gene, the real basis of hair loss can begin to be
understood," Christiano said. "We can now look at the cause -- the genes
themselves -- with the understanding that hormones are important but not
primary."
She said it may be possible to treat the more severe cases, such as the
Pakistani family, with gene therapy -- perhaps even with a rub-on product.
Gene therapy for male pattern baldness was also possible, she said -- but
years away.
At present there are two different treatments for baldness -- Merck and Co.'s
Propecia, a one-a-day pill based on hormones, and Pharmacia & Upjohn Inc.'s
Rogaine (minoxidil), which is rubbed into the scalp and which stops hair loss
in 80 percent of men who use it for a year. Another tests shows 80 percent
grow some hair back after a year.
"It's a very important finding and it eventually could lead to new
information about encoding the gene for hair loss," said Ron Trancik,
Pharmacia's lead researcher for Rogaine.
He said the company had "discussed internally" the possibility of developing
gene therapy for baldness.
The American Hair Loss Council in Chicago estimates that more than 33 million
American men and more than 19 million women have hair loss.
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